The totally off-topic thread

[Bundy Bear]

After a few days in Amsterdam then London it's time to head off to Tokyo.

Had a couple of good nights, Friday night was Flyertalk BA drinks and last night was a get together with the London based AFFers.

A few weeks ago I needed to get from London to Tokyo and after a few minutes of searching I find award availability on BA economy, Premium Economy and First, after asking my Facebbok friends which class I should travel I chose first.

So now I am in the Concorde Lounge at Heathrow T5, what was nice was Fast Track through security then straight to the Concorde Lounge.

The dining area is set up with a number of smaller private dining tables, somewhat different to the Qantas Sydney First Lounge which is open plan.

This will be the 2nd time this year but this will be the first time flying BA first, got to love when award availability comes up on the exact flight you need.

Once I am back in Australia I might have to do a trip report.

I know a few of you had flying long haul first and enjoying the Concorde Room as some users bucket lists, so I feel pretty lucky to be able to do it.

I am off to Japan for work or what appears to be work

 

[jetlagger]

After a few days in Amsterdam then London it's time to head off to Tokyo.

Had a couple of good nights, Friday night was Flyertalk BA drinks and last night was a get together with the London based AFFers.

A few weeks ago I needed to get from London to Tokyo and after a few minutes of searching I find award availability on BA economy, Premium Economy and First, after asking my Facebbok friends which class I should travel I chose first.

So now I am in the Concorde Lounge at Heathrow T5, what was nice was Fast Track through security then straight to the Concorde Lounge.

The dining area is set up with a number of smaller private dining tables, somewhat different to the Qantas Sydney First Lounge which is open plan.

This will be the 2nd time this year but this will be the first time flying BA first, got to love when award availability comes up on the exact flight you need.

Once I am back in Australia I might have to do a trip report.

I know a few of you had flying long haul first and enjoying the Concorde Room as some users bucket lists, so I feel pretty lucky to be able to do it.

I am off to Japan for work or what appears to be work

Hi Bundy,

I certainly look forward to your comprehensive TR, something that many of us aspire to, for the enchantment of F class.
Wish you a most pleasant journey.

 

[QF WP]

After the weekend of super cell storms, I was walking the dog this morning in the stifling humidity watching trees steaming - it's freaky!

 

[cove]

Better get over to Perth if the weather is going tropical rain forest in BNE!

 

[penegal]

Last night I closed out a roller-coaster fortnight, both professionally and personally (...and alcoholically ).

I went for a quiet drive last night, home after midnight, then BAM - off to work again this morning to do it all over again. What is 'rest'? Who needs that right?

 

[LiamR]

After the weekend of super cell storms, I was walking the dog this morning in the stifling humidity watching trees steaming - it's freaky!

The humidity after a storm, that's one element of Queensland I do not miss!

 

[QF WP]

Flashie, talk to me via email will you!

 

[SeatBackForward]

Be careful what you say, one of my mates is a first year engineering student at your university.

Hmm I'm about to get a first year engineering student with me for the summer period. Will report back on how it goes.

 

[penegal]

Hmm I'm about to get a first year engineering student with me for the summer period. Will report back on how it goes.

I'm getting one of them too, but not an engineer

 

[SeatBackForward]

Actually I don't mind saying who I worked for, as I won't be going back. It's a company called MEGT, and there were 16 staff in one office when I arrived there. I've played a large part (through successful tender writing and good strategies) in the company now having 1,000 staff in 100 offices. I would have felt much worse leaving 5 years ago, when it was fun, when we didn't have layers of management and when our field staff were left alone, but supported when necessary. We were also (not coincidentally) wildly profitable, with around 25% ROI. We are looking at a multi-million loss this year. So it's more sorrow than anger.

This downright sucks. The company I work for is somewhat similar, I've been here 12yrs, and there used to be real can do attitude that doesn't exist anymore. Back about 5 yrs ago, pre-GFC, we were a solid company with healthy returns. But now the environment seems to be about adding layers of inept management in whos sole existenc eis to sap the company of its resources fo rtheir own personal gain. Of coruse it doesnt help, when the ineptess is compouded by the "jobs for the boys" mentality is prevelant amongst them.

I forsee a train wreck in the near future, and if I'm still around afterwards, I can guarantee all this lot wont be, they'll move onto the next company to sap them of life too..

 

[anat0l]

Hmm I'm about to get a first year engineering student with me for the summer period. Will report back on how it goes.

I'm sure you'll be fine. Not many first years (at least in my days, could've changed now) apply for summer work, so you'll probably be content or impressed with who you get (hey, I suppose you had to have interviewed them, or someone did at least).

I suppose you'll be giving them mostly the work that the "mule" would usually carry anyway, right? When I got my first engineering work experience in second year, that's pretty much what I did (it was managing simulation data sets and preparing water quality readings for reports).

 

[SeatBackForward]

I'm sure you'll be fine. Not many first years (at least in my days, could've changed now) apply for summer work, so you'll probably be content or impressed with who you get (hey, I suppose you had to have interviewed them, or someone did at least).

I think this guys on the same program I was on 16yrs ago - so the work experience is part of being "sponsored"...ie he had no real choice! But yeah interviewed, and obviously only the very very talented do this particular program

I suppose you'll be giving them mostly the work that the "mule" would usually carry anyway, right? When I got my first engineering work experience in second year, that's pretty much what I did (it was managing simulation data sets and preparing water quality readings for reports).

Sounds better than my first year experience. Basically my job was to get every design report for the project I was sent to, photocopy each report about two dozen times, walk around the office distributing it. There'd be about 5~10 per day, each of about 40-60pages in varying A4/A3 sizes to photocopy..

At this stage the experience is more about having to go to a job everyday, working in an office environment and completing tasks assigned to you, I doub't he'll get much practical engineering experience. But I do remember that the work experience was by far the most valuable part of my Undergrad course for what I'm doing these days.

 

[Blinky]

This downright sucks. The company I work for is somewhat similar, I've been here 12yrs, and there used to be real can do attitude that doesn't exist anymore. Back about 5 yrs ago, pre-GFC, we were a solid company with healthy returns. But now the environment seems to be about adding layers of inept management in whos sole existenc eis to sap the company of its resources fo rtheir own personal gain. Of coruse it doesnt help, when the ineptess is compouded by the "jobs for the boys" mentality is prevelant amongst them.

I forsee a train wreck in the near future, and if I'm still around afterwards, I can guarantee all this lot wont be, they'll move onto the next company to sap them of life too..

The other thing I see creeping into the company is ageism. I don't see myself as a victim of this (I could be), but there are others who clearly are. Our middle managers tend to be 30ish males, and a number of long term staff 50+ have been "performance managed" out. The most blatant example is a woman I recruited 10 years ago. She only wanted to work 4 days a week, and that was fine. She always met targets.

Anyway this year she was asked to go to 3 days a week as her mother was dying and she had grand kids she cared for. Not only was this knocked back, but she was told she needed to go to 5 days a week. I related this to the GM as an example of how the company has changed and has become heartless.

 

[anat0l]

The other thing I see creeping into the company is ageism. I don't see myself as a victim of this (I could be), but there are others who clearly are. Our middle managers tend to be 30ish males, and a number of long term staff 50+ have been "performance managed" out. The most blatant example is a woman I recruited 10 years ago. She only wanted to work 4 days a week, and that was fine. She always met targets.

Anyway this year she was asked to go to 3 days a week as her mother was dying and she had grand kids she cared for. Not only was this knocked back, but she was told she needed to go to 5 days a week. I related this to the GM as an example of how the company has changed and has become heartless.

Maybe companies can "afford" to be heartless.

For most part, it is a market benefiting businesses right now, not job hunters (well, the latter yes if you want to get into specific jobs; and SMEs are probably never in a position to assume the cat bird's seat, so again an exception). If someone does not like the conditions at work and they leave, someone else (or rather, a whole stack of people) will quickly replace the one that left. The time and cost lag required to integrate a new person is worth having someone who the company believes in the long term they can "mould" into line with the more stringent policies. And if the new person can't put up with it, then there are still plenty that can take their place.

That's the way I'm seeing some of the more postured companies these days.

Thankfully the workplace here is not that 'heartless' and we have several employees who work less than five days a week (i.e. work the rest from home) to care for their young children, even though some of them are at the senior level. That said, I do work in a more or less low risk workplace.

 

[Blinky]

Good comments to a point anat01, but I've seen research which shows the cost of losing a competent staff member, replacing and training him or her and waiting until they get to a reasonable performance level to be around the annual salary of that staff. Sacking someone who might not fit a manager's narrow parameters is very costly. In addition, too many people are now motivated by fear. Not good at all.

 

[QF WP]

Whereas, too many Managers are motivated financially by artificially lifting "profit" targets and the easiest and least risk way in a downturn is to reduce expenditure - rather than the perceived "riskier" way of trying to grow sales organically and through clever marketing strategies...

 

[Katie]

The other thing I see creeping into the company is ageism. I don't see myself as a victim of this (I could be), but there are others who clearly are. Our middle managers tend to be 30ish males, and a number of long term staff 50+ have been "performance managed" out.

We had some team exercises in a group of managers preparing for performance reviews. We were given scenarios, and a paragraph about some people, and had to rate their performance and give an indication of their potential for promotions based on the information we were given.
It was really interesting working with another manager, he's male, but probably in his 30s like me. One of the fictional people we had to rate was 50yo, and had been with the company for 21yrs. Due to the information given *and* the age given, the other manager said he would not suggest him for promotion. He said "If he hasn't risen up in management by now, he won't ever be able to. Surely there's some reason he isn't a manager now".
Sure, it was all a fictional scenario and exercise, but the age-based assumptions were astounding. I have team members in their 60s, and unless they had told me something like "I just want to be an individual contributor until I plan to retire in 5/10 yrs", I wouldn't let their age get in the way of nominating them as having promotion potential. It was fascinating our differences in how we would assess someone based on a paragraph (though on the whole not widely different when it came to scores - e.g. not one of us saying "star performer" and another one saying "needs to be performance managed now").

 

[anat0l]

Whereas, too many Managers are motivated financially by artificially lifting "profit" targets and the easiest and least risk way in a downturn is to reduce expenditure - rather than the perceived "riskier" way of trying to grow sales organically and through clever marketing strategies...

Innovative would be a nicer word, but all in all, this is wanting. Most marketing strategies these days seem to be borne out of one having to mortgage their ethics.


Agree that it's too easy to make the balance sheet look good in short term by cutting expenditure. That said, when one was brought up in business school, wasn't the order of the day:

• Increase efficiencies (and cut inefficiencies)
• Focus on short term gain (less risk, pays to personal targets, appeases investors)
• Be risk adverse (only established methodologies / technologies, minimise CSR)

I never went to business school and did an MBA, so I might be talking out of thin air here. But I truly believe we need to change the overall discipline of how we do business (and generally interact with one another) in order to obtain a moral and ethical step change for the better.

And I'm not suggesting that companies should shift gears, be flippant and run off the rails into the poppy fields...

 

[SeatBackForward]

I never went to business school and did an MBA, so I might be talking out of thin air here.

I'll probably cop some slack for making the following comments, but unless you run an accounting firm, then management of a business shouldn't be dictated by accountants . It should be run by those who actually undestand the operations of said business.

Unfortunately, because we use "money" as a medium of exchange, those who are said to be the experts in managing "money" are somehow deemed to be the experts in running businesses. If society could function on a fair and equiatable exchange of goods and services, the bottom would fall out of money and finance markets, but there are two parties that don't want that to happen.

 

[simongr]

Good businesses aren't dictated to by accountants - all accountants can do is provide information and analysis of the business. They set targets for the business with reference to strategic targets set by the Board or leadership team. Th problem with accountants' input is that it is based in provable fact. If you want profit to grow by $5M then reducing spend on utilities by $5M will achieve that. Conversely saying that improving employee morale by 2 - 3% will lead to reduced employee turnover and savings of the same amount is very hard to hang your hat on.

You know what would make business' performance improve without having to resort to asking the CFO where can we save? Try some of these:

- Marketing plans that have a tangible and measurable improvement on sales in the face of a declining market
- Product development and innovation that persuade the consumers to buy your product at a premium over competitors
- Operational efficiency improvements that truly deliver better margins, quicker customer response times
- Flexible long term planning that allows the business to grow and shrink with little impact on the workforce so that it is more nimble and able to adapt

If that's too hard for the great minds of engineers, marketers, planners and designers then I am afraid they will have to resort to cost control measures.

Go back to the single olive debate on AA - what if instead of asking "where can we cut costs?" someone had said "where can we reliably add value to make our product a better selling proposition" there wouldn't be many accountants saying not to do that.